


Married for Armor Class Benefits

by TooOceanBlue



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fake Marriage, Mutual Pining, Pre-Relationship, Taako and Magnus are there too but they are not instrumental, We've got it all folks, then...real marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 18:41:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30143910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TooOceanBlue/pseuds/TooOceanBlue
Summary: Wedding, 1st level evocation: You touch adult humanoids willing to be bonded together in marriage. For the next 7 days, each target gains a +2 bonus to AC while they are within 30 feet of each other. A creature can benefit from this rite again only if widowed.Barry and Lup take advantage of this.
Relationships: Barry Bluejeans/Lup
Comments: 9
Kudos: 47





	Married for Armor Class Benefits

**Author's Note:**

> Technically Ceremony is a touch-range ritual spell but that’s not going to stop me

“I can give two of you +2 ac!” Merle shouted..

The Hunger rumbled above them. Lup dodged a tendril with a flip that wasn’t strictly necessary, but hey, it’s not like it would _ kill  _ her...permanently. Besides, Taako was staying behind too, and he’d been getting pretty obnoxious about his +3 to dex lately. Couldn’t let him get too cocky. 

“Dibs,” she called back, spending half her movement getting within range to cast fireball at the inky, bovine behemoth that crashed down before them. They hadn’t been able to save the world it was from; the fact consumed Lup with the resolve to save this one. She used the other half of her movement to join Barry behind a rock formation a dozen or so feet away, surrounded by tendrils so thin they would pass as sheets of the tar-like rain from cycle 25. 

“I’ll get you and Barry!” Merle offered, before burying his face in his holy book. He barely moved in the chaos around him, only occasionally stumbling away from the color-shot blackness with a grace Lup refused to be envious of. How Merle ever survived to the end of the year was not worth wasting brain power on.

“Eh-hem. We are gathered here today, on this… uh, what’s this place called again?”

Despite the quagmire, Barry managed to spare Merle a demanding look. “You really need that for the  _ spell? _ ”

Merle sacrificed keeping his page to put both hands ostentatiously on his hips. “It’s a complicated spell!

“Nebunope, Merle, we’ve been here for a year!” Magnus insisted earnestly, before he turned around and slammed his battle axe through a trunk of Hunger.

“ _ Thank you _ , Magnus. At least  _ some  _ of you seem to care about helping me do my job!”

“Get better at your job!” Taako negged, before doing a backflip off the rock formation behind Barry and Lup and blasting his own special chunk of Hunger goo out of the sky. Lup flipped him off.

“Just hurry Merle,  _ before  _ we reset!”

“Alright, alright!” He found where he had left off, licking his thumb for every page turn. “We’re gathered here today on this Nepunope to join these two before witness of Pan and these...witnesses.” He looked up from the reading again. “Hey guys, are you watching?”

“I’m watching!” Magnus said with enthusiasm!

“We’re watching,” said Taako with venom.

“Can you hurry it up, Merle!” Barry heaved, just barely missing the Hunger’s strike by the back kick of his 7th level spell. That ac boost really wouldn’t hurt.

“I’m hurrying! Jeez, stop interrupting!”

“You interrupted yourself!” Lup shouted back.

Merle grumbled at that, but continued, shuffling away from a gathering of Hunger beasts as he did. “This union is to be entered freely and soberly, blah blah blah..” He turned a page. “Hey, do you two-”

“ _Yes_ Merle!” Barry exasperated and Lup growled, because one of the Hunger’s beasts had just gotten a good hit in, and if she wasn’t going to reset in a few minutes anyway, she might be concerned about how many of those she could take.

“Okay, jeez! I now pronounce you married!”

Barry stumbled over something but, miraculously, managed to dodge the tendril that slammed down before him. The flood of adrenaline-like warmth that spread through his veins to allow such a feat was almost enough to distract him from the words Merle had just said. “ _ What? _ ”

“ _ What? _ ” Lup echoed, even as she blasted open the oily-winged beast that attempted to retreat into the sky and out of her range.

“What?” Merle asked incredulously. “That’s the spell!”

“You couldn’t have blessed us?” Barry managed.

“You have my blessing!”

“The  _ spell bless _ , Merle!”

Merle, for his part, was already launching his own spiritual attack against the surrounding Hunger. “The what-now?”

“Instead of the  _ marriage _ spell!” Lup demanded, and Barry could see her exertion in the heat gathered in her face. Good thing they’d gotten a +2 to ac now, huh? But oh, wait, actually it was a terrible thing.

“It's Ceremony!” Merle defended, holding up the book to face them as if they could even read it from that distance. As if it mattered at all that it was a  _ spell _ from a  _ book _ .

“I’m gonna kill that old man,” Lup grumbled, and shoved Barry away from the rock formation just as a great tendril from the sky smashed through it. It was hard to tell if the way his heart picked up at the contact was from the tendril, the spell, or Lup.

“A-at least uh, at least we’ve got th-the ac bonus, huh?” Barry joked. They could joke about this. They were at that place as crewmates. It just wasn’t very  _ funny. _

“Like I need it,” Lup shot right back, like she hadn’t been the first one to call dibs. She did another flip and disintegrated the mass in front of her to prove her point. The grin on her face was infectious though, arrogant and okay, kind of hot, as usual, and Barry found it just distracting enough to question if the boost in ac would really make up for it. That in itself was almost more embarrassing than the actual marriage thing.

A wedding wasn’t binding if the bride or groom died, right? He’d just have to die then, no problem-

Ironically, the Hunger’s tendril punched clean through his chest before he could register the thought.

“Fuck, Barry, with a +2 ac?” Taako asked, concern only distantly evident.

Barry fell forward, and at least he wasn’t facing Lup as he coughed up globs of oily matter, the counterforce of it pushing  _ other  _ materials out of the open space that now constituted his torso. 

Warm hands flipped him onto his back, but he couldn’t keep his eyes open long enough to see the effects of the spell fade from Lup with his death.

-

“You really felt that ac boost, huh?” Taako asked Lup later, when they were all back and safe on the ship and the plane was looking non-hostile enough that they had the time to check on eachother. He was nearly shoving her off her bed just so he could read in  _ her  _ personal space for some reason.

“Yeah, for all of five minutes. Can’t believe Merle waited until we were  _ in  _ battle to cast a ritual spell- oh wait, I totally can.”

“Yeah, I was gonna say, this is Merle we’re talking about.”

“I’m surprised he could even cast it. Isn’t it like, a  _ cleric  _ spell?”

“It’s a cleric spell,” Taako confirmed, angling his book in her direction. It was a spellbook, apparently, because it detailed the Ceremony spell on the page he presented to her. “So good luck with you and Barry getting that one again. Merle probably already forgot how to cast it.”

Lup shot him a warning look at the implication, and Taako shrugged, turning his attention back to the spell book. If she didn’t want to talk about it, that was fine.

But Taako read the words “two adult humanoids willing to be bonded in marriage” and nearly rolled his eyes at them not having figured it out yet.

Maybe if they died in eachothers arms again, it would really drive the point home. Since  _ getting married _ clearly didn’t cut it.

Whatever. They had time.

-

Barry woke up slowly, the sun angling through the small port window of his room on the Starblaster. Lup lay on her stomach beside him, a book propped up on her pillow. She must have finished meditating a while ago, because she was nearly halfway through the thing and she’d been reading something else the night before. She smiled at him when he opened his eyes.

“Morning Babe,”

“Morning,” Barry mumbled, shifting to get a better look at the book. “What are you reading?”

Lup leaned into him. “An old spellbook I found. Mostly lower level, but it’s from a plane with some weird ones.” Her hands traced the spells on the page, and Barry knew her well enough to catch her microexpressions, even half asleep as he was. Recognition, confusion, and realization all flickered across her face in the span of half a second. She tapped the page.

“Merle used this, remember? Years ago.”

Barry blinked at the book before he reached over Lup to grab his glasses. Lup expressions he could make out without them, but words not so much.

_ Ceremony _

_ You perform one of several religious ceremonies. When you cast the spell, choose one of the following: _

_ Wedding- You touch adult humanoids willing to be bonded together in marriage. For the next 7 days, each target gains a +2 bonus to AC while they are within 30 feet of each other. A creature can benefit from this rite again only if widowed. _

Barry sat up, sliding the book into his lap. “Shit, yeah, he did. This was, uh, this was before we were together.”

Lup pulled herself up and rested her chin on his shoulder, contemplating the page. “We could cast it again,” she said after a moment.

“What?”

Lup tapped the last line of the spell details, a grin beginning to spread over her face. “‘If widowed,’ Babe, we both fit that category.”

“Would that...work?” Barry asked, scanning the spell again, searching for a caveat.

“Only one way to find out,” Lup said, already crawling out of bed and pulling on a shirt. “You wanna stay behind this cycle?”

“Where are you going?”

“To talk to Merle, duh. It’s a cleric spell.”

“Then why uh, why are you talking to Merle?” he said smartly.

Lup leaned forward over the bed, planting her hands on either side of Barry’s hips and smiling close. “You wanna get married, Babe?” she asked.

“Again?”

Lup raised her eyebrows, turning to walk away in slow, exaggerated steps. “I mean, you don’t  _ have  _ to. I’m sure there’s somebody else willing to take me up on that sweet-sweet ac bonus.”

“Wait, Babe,” Barry laughed, reaching out to grab her hand, which she had oh so generously offered behind her as she walked away. “I’ll m-marry you, hold on.”

Lup bit back a grin as he pulled her close. “You don’t  _ have  _ to.”

“I’ll do it for the ac bonus.”

Lup rolled her eyes, shoving him onto his back and following close behind.

“ _ Obviously _ Babe, why else would we, if we’re just gonna get widowed?”

Barry laughed. “Can you- can you  _ imagine  _ the paperwork?”

Lup paused. “Actually, can you imagine tax fraud? The insurance companies we could scam?” Lup propped herself up again so she could look Barry in the eyes. “Okay, ceremony spell, life insurance- write that down. We are going to exploit the hell out of this.”

Barry laughed again, pulling Lup close.

“Merle is gonna kill us.” she said pleasantly.

“Merle is gonna marry us.” Barry corrected. “Wait, I mean-”

“Oh,  _ worst  _ phrasing, Babe.”

“Y-you know I meant ‘marry’ like, um, ‘officiate’. ‘Decree us married.’”

“I’m gonna tell him you said that.” Lup said, with complete sincerity. Then, before he could stop her, she rolled out of bed again. “I’m going to tell Merle you want him to marry us.”

“Babe-”

“He’ll be so happy, he’ll make it a whole thing! With  _ seaweed  _ and  _ peppervine- _ ”

“Wait!” Barry pulled himself out of bed, already dreading the idea of Merle as a wedding planner. But Lup was already out the door, surely damning the both of them.

It’d be good to have the ac bonus, at least.

**Author's Note:**

> Did you know this is the second fic I have written where characters have gotten symbolically engaged but not really, despite being in a committed lifelong romantic partnership? I wouldn’t have many dimes for this, I just think it’s weird that it’s happened twice.
> 
> Anyway!! School has been hell but I managed to write this last night after the idea being in my drafts for months. Comments are very much appreciated!


End file.
